Wednesday, 10 February 2010

Bumblebee

That favourite mimosa of mine (see below)is not yet in full bloom, so its scent is hardly making itself felt above the rather heavy fragrance of the Sweet Box that is planted all around it. Today there was a bumblebee visiting the Sweet Box flowers (a white-tailed Bombus lucorum, to be precise, as in the picture). This was my first of the year, and despite the cold she seemed to be in fine fettle, bombinating merrily around the shrubbery. Time was when you never saw bumblebees in winter, but now they barely hibernate, at least in town, where parks and gardens supply many of their favourite winter-flowering plants. You would have thought, though, that they would feel the cold. As you would with all those other creatures reportedly starting their annual cycle earlier and earlier with every passing year, regardless of the weather. I always thought it was day length that regulated such things, with weather too playing a significant part, but the first hasn't changed and the second has been decidedly parky. What else is at work then? The obvious answer is 'climate change', but I cannot see how something as nebulous and long-term as that could be affecting individual animals. If it was manifesting itself in an obvious way - i.e. a mild winter - that would make sense, but when winters are like this one and still the (accelerating, they say) trend towards earliness continues, you have to wonder what is going on. Well, I do - perhaps there's something I'm missing...

We've already got bumble bees on the mahonia (nasty municipal plants, as my mother insists on calling them). But what really troubles me is the total absence of small birds this winter. Last year there was an endless stream of tits, finches and sparrows to our feeders. This year, nothing. Is Esher similarly bird-free?

Wouldn't know about Esher, Sophie - Carshalton me, where the birds are doing all right. House sparrows are hogging the feeders, but I don't begrudge them, as they're in decline. Maybe not quite so many tits or gooldfinches as last year, but still quite a few, and the greenfinches are doing fine. There also seem to be more starlings this year, despite the reported fall in numbers. And you can hardly move for redwings...

Same up here Nige, long tailed tits are swamping the fat ball feeders occasionally moving over and allowing the woodpeckers in, great, blue and coal tits have survived so far. Next doors pond has been frozen since Xmas, as it should being a curling pond, ours has become the reserve again, lots of mallards. As ever when the ground is snow covered the moles have been active, the fox is back chasing rabbits at midnight, never seen them catch one yet. The barn owls have been active for weeks as have the deer, munching their way through many yards of ivy. So, considering the low temperatures, down to minus eleven in January, not a bad bird winter. No bees though, the aconites poked their heads out last week and along with the snowdrops promptly went back indoors as even more snow arrived.

About Me

Nige, who, like Mr Kenneth Horne, prefers to remain anonymous, was also a founder blogger of The Dabbler and a co-blogger on the Bryan Appleyard Thought Experiments blog. He is the sole blogger on this one, and his principal aim is to share various of life's pleasures. These tend to relate to books, art, poems, butterflies, birds, churches, music, walking, weather, drink, etc, with occasional references to the passing scene.